Why Human Resources Is the Centerpiece of Every Business
Although HR professionals have come a long way in asserting ourselves as a strategic business partner, this idea is still a fairly static and an unchanging belief. Some businesses embrace this concept; some businesses give it the least priority, but every business should hold their Human Resources as the centerpiece to their organization.
Recently, a dear friend emailed me an article “Google’s Secret to Workforce Productivity” http://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20140911044006-31945981-google-s-secret-to-workforce-productivity?trk=pulse-det-nav_art. In her email she simply stated “Read it. And think about it. This is YOU and why SOLV HR is viable for businesses now and in the future.” The article focused on Google’s innovative idea to change the way HR functioned within their organization by focusing on people analytics in everything they do. No matter what HR process was involved, they found a way to measure and benchmark everything. Although the article was about innovating HR, what caught my attention most is the following quote. “Unfortunately, making that transition to an innovative firm is problematic because almost every current HR function operates under 20th century principles of past practices, efficiency, risk avoidance, legal compliance, and hunch-based people management decisions. If you want serial innovation, you will need to reinvent traditional HR and the processes that drive innovation.” – Dr. John Sullivan
The Stigma of Human Resources in the minds of owners, executives, and even HR professionals is that of a limited function or compartmentalized department within an organization. When I pitch SOLV HR to businesses, they immediately say “we have an HR person” or “we are doing HR stuff”. Sometimes, when I simply mention the word HR the person responds with a contorted sour expression. Most people, at times including myself, have somehow missed and relegated HR as a limited function or department of compliance, policy, recruitment, training, discipline and etc. In reality, businesses should consider Human Resources as the “big picture” and “centerpiece” of their entire operation. No matter what the business’s biggest goal is financial, branding, service etc., that goal requires a strategy. The strategy the organization creates requires execution and execution is done by people. And what is people but Human Resources.
GOAL = STRATEGY = EXECUTION = HUMAN RESOURCES
I want to challenge business owners, executives and HR professionals to change their minds about HR. Take any of your business goals and follow this formula as it will always lead to Human Resources. No matter what size your company and no matter what the goal, Human Resources is not a function or department but the overarching centerpiece to everything the business is and does. Google gets this idea, and as a result each employee generates $1.5M annually in revenue.
